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The Islamic Caliphate: Undrawn Conclusions

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The Islamic Caliphate: Undrawn Conclusions Aleppo before the war, 2010. Picture credit: tolgasuba/Bigstock.com, original cropped Expert Comment The Islamic Caliphate: Undrawn conclusions Copyright © 2018 by Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute The right of Alexey Malashenko to be identified as the author of this publication is hereby asserted. The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the original author(s) and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views and opinions of the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute, its co-founders, or its staff members. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please write to the publisher: Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute gGmbH Französische Straße 23 10117 Berlin Germany +49 30 209677900 [email protected] 1 Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute The Islamic Caliphate: Undrawn conclusions Alexey Malashenko The primary and exclusive achievement of Islamist extremism was the emergence of the Islamic State in the beginning of the 21st century, which adopted the name of the World Caliphate in 2014. As Lebanese researcher Lina Khatib (2015) argued, its formation heralded the beginning of a ‘new era of jihadism’. In a certain sense, she was correct; the Islamic State (or ‘World Caliphate’) was an important development in the history of modern Islamism. Only the future (i.e., the 21st century) will reveal the extent to which it marked the beginning of a ‘new era’. Attempts to create an Islamic state will be surely repeated in different parts of the Muslim world. The next Islamic states will differ in their creation, although it is not out of the question that there will be analogues to ISIS with comparable cruelty. ‘Creeping Islamisation’ will continue, as will the adoption of religious behavioural norms, prohibitions based on Sharia, and the incorporation of Islamic law and corresponding norms into state constitutions and into the structure of the state. At the same time, a coordinated, united Muslim movement for some kind of worldwide Islamic state will not materialise. Each subsequent Islamic state, despite positioning itself as a universal state, will address problems on the national (and in some cases regional) level. We can venture a guess as to which countries may host its next iterations; possibilities include Nigeria or some neighbouring African countries (e.g., Libya, Somalia or Yemen). I would not rule out Pakistan, in which elements of a potential Islamic state have existed for some time. The desire for an Islamic state will be collectively determined by internal and external causes according to the state of the Muslim world. The 2 Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute primary driver, however, remains the demand for an Islamic alternative, which has not disappeared. Before ISIS Prior to the rise of ISIS, the most powerful Islamist organisation with an extremist orientation was al-Qaeda. Many other movements exhibited a similar ideological slant, with parties on a regional and national scale: The Afghan Taliban; the Islamic Liberation Movement of Palestine (Hamas); the Nigerian Boko Haram group (translated as ‘Western education is forbidden’); Somali Hizb ul Shabab (Party of the Youth); the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; and hundreds of lesser-known groups and cells, which include the words ‘jihad’, ‘Sharia’, ‘caliphate’, or ‘emirate’. Al-Qaeda did not task itself with building an Islamic state; its main strategic goal was to showcase its strength to the rest of the world, take revenge on ‘enemies of Islam’, and lead a global jihad in the name of vengeance. American analyst and journalist Alan Cullison (2004) compared al-Qaeda to the “early Russian anarchists” who “wrote some of the most persuasive tracts on the uses of terror", noting that “Al-Qaeda understood that its attacks would not lead to a quick collapse of the great power. Rather, its aim was to tempt the powers to strike back ...” (para. 18). In 2004, the number of jihadists or ‘Islamist fanatics’ who supported al-Qaeda comprised no more than 0.1% of all Muslims according to experts – yet this figure still equalled 1.2–1.5 million people. Another 10 to 15 million ‘sympathised’ with al-Qaeda. As Bauer and Raufer (2005) pointed out, "If we take into account those who, due to the events in Iraq and Palestine, trusted bin Laden more than George Bush, their number exceeded 200 million people” (p. 26). The question of how many Muslims sympathised with ISIS is discussed herein. Al-Qaeda was geared entirely towards destruction. Its structure (and more precisely, the absence of one) was designed for guerrilla warfare in enemy territory. Al-Qaeda has 3 Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute been compared to the random movement of celestial bodies, or a solar system, where each planet rotates in its own orbit. It did not set out to seize power in any Muslim country, nor did the organisation require a specific geographical springboard to implement its plans. By contrast, ISIS’s goal was qualitatively different, namely the creation of a transnational Islamic space across multiple borders and, following that, an Islamic state. Historically, such a state can be compared with the Ottoman Empire, which, until the beginning of the 20th century, could be considered the successor of the United Caliphate. Yet which borders did they hope to cross and overcome? The borders in question were drawn in the Middle East as a result of the Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916 and then finalised after the end of the First and Second World Wars. The Sykes–Picot Agreement can be likened to the Yalta Conference of 1945, a treaty between victorious powers on the division of the world after the Second World War. Incidentally, some previous agreements on the division of the world were implicitly recognised in Yalta, although in an altered form. The borders that passed ‘along the outlines’ of the former Ottoman Empire proved to be artificial. The artificiality of Middle Eastern borders can be likened to that of post-Soviet borders, including those in Central Asia. Such borders are also apt to shift in the Central Asian region, which could stimulate the growth of the Islamic State’s popularity vis-à-vis the consolidation of Muslims. One must admit, however, that the danger of Central Asian borders being redrawn has declined in the second decade of the 21st century. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, all state borders seemed eternal – although the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century has shown that such prolonged stability in state borders is impossible. One way or another, ISIS brought into doubt the existence of ‘old borders’, and its actions may be considered an Islamic protest against a long-term and habitual ‘colonial’ division of the world. The emergence of ISIS was not accidental. First, it was a culmination of social and political protest, the total constant strengthening of the Islamist trend. Second, it was born 4 Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute of chronic instability in the Middle East and the Muslim world as a whole. Third, it is a consequence of foreign interference in the internal affairs of Muslim countries. A widespread opinion in Russia and several countries in the post-Soviet space suggests that the West brought on the emergence of ISIS – something for which the Americans are given primary credit. Such an opinion is also shared, for example, by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov among others. It is unlikely, however, that Washington truly was intentionally involved in the formation of ISIS, whose successes largely devalued the Americans’ defeat of Saddam Hussein. American intelligence agencies observed the process of ISIS’s creation and were in communication with its representatives. They calculated the use of ISIS, for instance, in undermining Assad's regime. However, neither the Americans nor anyone else took the scope of ISIS’s advancement into account, nor its real potential, particularly as a military and terrorist force. ISIS was perceived instead as an artificial phenomenon, and its potential was underestimated (Liptak, 2016). The decisive pretext for the appearance of the ‘Great Caliphate’ was the ‘Arab Spring’, which began in 2011 and led to the collapse of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libyan Jamahiriya along with the outbreak of the civil war in Syria. The alignment of forces in Arab-Muslim society has changed, which has actualised the idea of an Islamic alternative. All this could have been foreseen, considering the degradation of local elites and the explosive growth of social protest; ISIS was only the most extreme form of its expression. From the beginning of the Arab Spring, the experts began – if only cautiously – to discuss the fate of the monarchies in the Persian Gulf. The Islamist opposition strengthened its positions throughout the region and became a legitimate part of the political landscape. The emergence of an Islamic state was inevitable, or nearly so; the real question was where, when, and how it would take place. It happened to manifest on the territory of Iraq and Syria. 5 Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute It is worth mentioning that the hopes the Arab Spring inspired in Western politicians have proved untenable – specifically the hope that a cataclysm in the Middle East would lead to democratisation and serve as an impetus for the development of civil society. ISIS did not fight for survival in the initial stages of its existence, unlike the Afghan Taliban or Chechen separatists.
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